Broughton Project

Background

In 2003 Active Archaeology was engaged in running an archaeological project and field school in the grounds of Castle Howard in North Yorkshire. During this time a local farmer approached the team asking that they investigate one of his fields near the village of Broughton. The Active Archaeology team agreed to carry out an evaluation of the archaeological deposits on the field, using field school students and a volunteer team trained at Castle Howard. Since then the community group has taken on full responsibility for the site under the name Friends of Active Archaeology. The Friends are a group local to York and Malton and recieve support from the Greater York Community Archaeology Project∞.

To evaluate the archaeology in the field the team carried out a field walking and partial geophysical survey, concentrating on the southwest corner of the field. This area was investigated first because Hayes (1988) had identified it, during the 1970s, as having a spread of late Roman period pottery.

In the summer of 2004 field walking identified a little more pottery in the southwest corner of the field and a possible low platform was identified. A test trench (2m x 2m) was inserted in the possible platform, but no structural evidence was located. In February 2005 Jon Kenny and Steven Lawson carried out a resistivity survey in the southwest corner of the field, this survey was followed up by two evaluation trenches begun in the summer of 2005.

A report summarising the results of this work up to the end of 2005 is attached, below.